Child Sex Trafficking Arrests Timed To NCAA Final Four Weekend

Tuesday

Apr 22, 2014 at 12:06 AM

DALLAS — When hordes of college hoops fans descended on north Texas for the NCAA Final Four basketball tournament, they were joined by another more sinister group: people trafficking in child prostitution.

DALLAS — When hordes of college hoops fans descended on north Texas for the NCAA Final Four basketball tournament, they were joined by another more sinister group: people trafficking in child prostitution.

An FBI task force that included Dallas police said it arrested four pimps, 18 "johns" and three people who solicited children for sex trafficking on the Internet in a four-day crackdown during the tournament two weeks ago. Also, five children were discovered and rescued, which is a top goal of such operations.

A NASCAR race was held at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth the same weekend as the Final Four, and law enforcement officials say major sporting events often attract child sex traffickers.

The number of online sex ads jumps during such events, authorities say. Police are now having success using those same ads to find and rescue children forced into prostitution.

"There’s going to be probably a lot of men at a sporting event coming to a specific location who will be alone with money, partying," said Shawn McGraw, a supervisor with Homeland Security Investigations in Dallas. "We feel that increases our opportunities to identify minors who may be exploited by adult males."

During this year’s Super Bowl, authorities rescued 16 child sex trafficking victims, most of them in New York and New Jersey, the FBI said. More than 40 suspected pimps and their associates were arrested, some of whom claimed to have traveled to those states specifically for the Super Bowl.

Earlier this month, the FBI’s child exploitation task force was in Augusta, Ga., for the Masters Golf Tournament, where they made five arrests.

When the Super Bowl came to North Texas in 2011, police did not report a big spike in either adult or child prostitution cases, perhaps due in part to the icy and cold weather conditions. But one of the people they did arrest was a felon from Austin who forced a 14-year-old girl and her adult sister to come work as prostitutes in Dallas because "there was big money to be made," authorities said.

Sgt. Byron Fassett of the Dallas Police Department’s child exploitation squad said some child advocacy groups may exaggerate claims of sex trafficking during sporting events to try to bring attention to the problem. He said although the number of sex ads increases during such events, he hasn’t seen evidence of large numbers of children being trafficked for sex.

And he said his unit doesn’t conduct enforcement operations just when a big event hits town.

"We work on it on a daily basis," Fassett said. "It’s happening 365 days a year."

The goal is to find potential victims, get them off the streets and give them the social services they need, Fassett said.

In the past, police primarily discovered child prostitutes during vice arrests. Fassett says his first goal is to make contact with prostitutes by calling phone numbers listed in Internet sex ads.

"We’re just leveraging the technology like everybody else does," he said. "We’re taking their techniques and tools and using it against them."

If the girls are under 18, police will move quickly to rescue them. Then officers can go after their pimps who have been trafficking them, Fassett said.

Fassett said he wants to give the women the "opportunity to get out" rather than arresting them on prostitution charges.

McGraw, whose agency leads the North Texas Trafficking Task Force, said it can be difficult to break the bond between a pimp and a prostitute and to get her to testify against him. Women often think their pimp cares about them, or they are dependent on them for their survival, he said.

Fassett, who has been an officer for 33 years, said that in his specialized unit success is not necessarily measured by the number of arrests. That standard, he said, is in the number of victims rescued. That new way of thinking for law enforcement is catching on. It’s now a nationally recognized model for helping children at risk of being exploited as prostitutes.

"It’s not about making a whole bunch of arrests. It’s about finding victims," Fassett said. "Obviously, our goal first is kids, then adult victims."

The children rescued during the recent north Texas operation, part of the FBI’s nationwide Innocence Lost initiative, were 16 and 17 years old and included runaways, authorities said. In addition, more than 65 women and children who were identified in the operation were offered services such as food and clothing along with referrals for medical facilities and shelters.

It was a coordinated effort, with 18 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies taking part, and it included traditional undercover stings to target johns.

Child prostitutes are typically slightly younger than the ones arrested in North Texas this month, about 14 or 15 years old, Fasset said. He said they tend to be chronic runaways and victims of prior physical or sexual abuse who come from dysfunctional homes.

"That’s what the traffickers and the johns take advantage of," he said. "You have people out there who feel they have nowhere to go. It makes it very, very easy for them to be exploited on the streets."

They have to depend on adults because they can’t get a job, open a bank account or rent a car or hotel room, Fassett said.

New Friends New Life, a Dallas nonprofit that helps sex trafficking victims, is assisting the girls and women who were rescued in the north Texas operation.

Katie Pedigo, its executive director, said the victims are all from north Texas. But former prostitutes have told stories about being on the move constantly, she said.

"They tell us they would be moved from place to place, depending on where the demand is," Pedigo said.

And that usually is during major sporting events, where large numbers of men are, she said. Pedigo said North Texas law enforcement agencies serious about breaking up child sex trafficking are willing to use new techniques to address the problem.